Year 5 - Geography
In geography, the children worked in groups to determine the correct features of a mountain before using their artistic skills to draw a labelled diagram in their books. We then went on to explore how mountains are formed by the ever shifting outer crust floating on the liquid rock inside the mantle before describing the different types of mountains that can be found on Earth.
DPSSA Football League
Some super game play this evening down at the DPSSA Football League at Witton. Our first game was against Ashleigh when we unfortunately lost 7-0 . Our second game was against Holy Trinity and through pure grit and determination we can away with a draw.
Snow White Pantomime
The children had a brilliant time today at Blackburn Empire Theatre. The whole school watched Snow White. It was wonderful to see their faces light up, Christmas is in full swing at St Barnabas! All of the photos will be uploaded shortly to here: https://www.stbarnabasdarwen.co.uk/photo-galleries/snow-white-pantomime
Year 5 - Snow White
The children had a great time at Blackburn Empire Theatre watching the pantomime Snow White. The children enjoyed every minute as they heckled the evil queen Horibella, celebrated the love of Prince Charming and Snow White and tried in vain to warn Tilly that there was a ghost behind her. They sang and danced along to every song and during the intermission, the children had an ice lolly.
KS2 Football Practice
Today’s football session focused on using bounce back players to create overloads, giving the children the chance to develop their passing accuracy, movement off the ball and tactical awareness. They worked on making quick decisions, supporting teammates and finding space to keep possession under pressure.
Year 5/6 Sportshall Athletics Trials
Our first Sportshall Athletics trial for Years 5 and 6 took place this week. The children mainly worked on their field events such as chest push, javelin, ling jump and triple jump. They developed their techniques by working on hip thrust and swinging their arms when jumping. We finished with sprint relays and the children really encouraged each other and thoroughly enjoyed the session.
Year 5 - Online Safety
We continued our exploration of the online world by discussing the popular computer game Roblox. The children’s talked about their experiences and we considered how to stay safe during multiplayer experiences, how best to deal with friend requests alongside the financial elements of robux online payments.
Year 5 - RotaKids
Darwen Rotary Club visited us again to inspire us for our next project in the new year. We talked about how our shoebox collections helped refugees in Darwen and further ideas on how to support our school and international communities. The children were inspired by the principles and ideals of the Rotary Club and are already full of ideas for the future. We also received badges and certificates confirming our role as RotaKids.
Year 5 - Geography
We started our geography unit on mountains by revisiting past knowledge of the topic. The children’s mind maps included names of famous mountains, their height, their climate and where they are found. Then we moved onto defining a mountain as a steep landform 600m above the ground before using atlases to find the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents (the seven summits).
KS2 DPSSA Football League
Tonight, the boys played brilliantly in this week’s DPSSA league fixtures. They showed great teamwork and determination throughout both matches. Although they narrowly lost 2–1 to St Joseph’s, they demonstrated resilience and bounced back with an outstanding 9–0 victory against St Edward’s. It was a fantastic effort from the whole team.
Year 5 Carbon Monoxide Workshop
On Tuesday, Year 5 had their carbon monoxide workshop. During this workshop, the children watched videos and took part in group/drama activities to help them learn: what carbon monoxide is and that it is known as CO; that you cannot see, smell, hear, taste or touch it; the effects carbon monoxide can have on our bodies and also how we can keep ourselves and our homes safe. The children received and brought home packs containing helpful information regarding CO.
Whole School Worship - The Importance of Trees
This week is National Tree Week and Mrs Ham introduced an exciting new tree-planting project that we will be undertaking as a school. Following on from Switch Off Fortnight, we will continue our Planet Protectors mission by planting trees on our school grounds and, of course, our fantastic children will be involved. To kick start the project, we had a discussion about why trees are amazing. The children gave some very thoughtful answers, such as “they give us oxygen”, “they take harmful carbon dioxide out of the air”, “they provide protection for animals”, “we love playing in the trees”, “we use trees to make things”. Mrs Ham also told us the story, The Man Who Planted Trees. It was about a shepherd who saw the barren land and wanted to improve it, so he started planting trees. He planted over 1000 acorns, and after many years, the landscape was filled with lush, green trees, rivers flowed and a town was built. We learned from this 100-year-old story that one person’s small act can make a huge difference. Just like in the Parable of the Talents, we learned that it’s important for us all to use what we’ve been given to make a positive impact on the world. We can’t wait to use the trees that have been donated to us by the National Trust to make a positive impact on our community.